When it comes to Batman, Ben Affleck is seemingly sure of only one thing: He doesn't know what he's going to do about Batman.

Perhaps emblematic of Warner Bros.' struggling DC Cinematic Universe, the acclaimed filmmaker and actor has grappled with his relationship to the Dark Knight, and the intense spotlight that accompanies the iconic superhero, virtually from the moment in 2013 when he was cast in the film that would become Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

RELATED: Ben Affleck Still Wants to Direct a Batman Film

That connection was further strained by negative reviews for the Zack Snyder film, quickly followed by Warner Bros.' perhaps-premature 2016 announcement that Affleck would co-write, direct and star in a Batman solo feature. That began months-long roller coaster that ended in January with the Oscar winner stepping aside as director, and his successor, Matt Reeves, scrapping his script. That was followed by nearly a year of persistent rumors that Affleck is growing tired of the cape and cowl, an assertion denied repeatedly by the actor and the studio, with decreasing plausibility.

Affleck himself returned to the subject in a new interview in which he cast further doubt on whether he'll return as Bruce Wayne following Justice League (“I always evaluate this stuff on the merit of the material"), and revealed he still wants to direct a Batman film.

With the addition of this latest wrinkle, we look back at Affleck long, twisting history of playing and directing -- and not playing and not directing -- Batman.

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Batfleck Begins

Circa 1988: For accuracy's sake, we have to date Ben Affleck's long, twisting history with the Dark Knight back to at least 1988. That's when he and childhood friend turned collaborator Matt Damon auditioned for the role of Robin in director Tim Burton's Batman. “The best [audition] — and the one that in retrospect hurts me to this day — [Damon and I] weren’t sure what it was because they told us it was a secret project," Affleck recalled in November on Jimmy Kimmel Live! "And so … they gave us what was a dummy, generic scene, about a kid who wanted to race BMXs, or something. We go down there, when we get into the room they tell us, ‘We didn’t want anyone to know about this and you need to keep it a secret, but this is actually an audition for … Tim Burton is making a movie about Batman, and this is for Robin.'"

“So we both auditioned for Robin," he concluded, "and we were both pretty sure we got the part." They hadn't. But neither did anyone else, because the Boy Wonder didn't make it into Batman's final script.

August 2012: Surrounded by buzz for his historical drama Argo, Affleck is rumored as a frontrunner to direct Justice League, which Warner Bros. has yet to announce.

August 2013: A year later, Warner Bros. surprises virtually everyone by announcing that Affleck will star as the Dark Knight in director Zack Snyder's then-untitled follow-up to Man of Steel. The initial release date is pegged as July 17, 2015; that ultimately moves to March 25, 2016.

An analysis finds that, in the hour following the announcement, 71 percent of the reactions on Twitter were negative. Overnight, more than 30 petitions launch online demanding the studio remove Affleck from the film.

In fairness, Michael Keaton had his fair share of detractors in 1988, too: Warner Bros. received nearly 50,000 letters from angry fans protesting his casting.

Batfleck v Backlash

September 2013: Appearing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Affleck recounts how studio representatives tried to prepare him for the fan backlash. “I was like, 'I’m a big boy,'” he said. “They said, ‘Just don’t go on the internet for a couple of days,’ and I said, ‘I handle shit.’ I’m very tough. I saw the announcement, I look on this thing, I look down on the first comment — ‘Ben Affleck’s Going To Be Batman,’ the first one just goes, ‘Nooooooooooooooo!'”

First look at Ben Affleck from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

October 2013: Affleck admits he was reluctant to accept the role of Batman, which becomes something of a theme over the next four years.

May 2014: Snyder releases a moody, black-and-white photo featuring the first look at Affleck as the Dark Knight, followed shortly by the announcement of the official title of the film: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

September 2014: Seemingly coming to terms with the backlash to his casting, Affleck tells Today, "We have these cultural stories that people have attachments to, they care very much about, the fans have imagined it, they write fan fiction, and they get very into and it and they’re certainly entitled to those feelings."

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Another Dark Knight (Movie) Rises?

October 2014: Warner Bros. rolls out its ambitious plan for what becomes widely referred to as the DC Extended Universe, kicking off in 2016 with the release of Batman v Superman. What was initially a 10-movie slate has fluctuated dramatically, with planned features like The Batman added later, while others, like a Justice League sequel, seemingly fading from sight.

July 2015: The first report surfaces that Affleck is collaborating with Geoff Johns, DC Entertainment's chief creative officer, on a script for a Batman standalone film, with Affleck pegged to also star and direct. Affleck finally confirms they're working together on "something" eight months later,

July 2015: The actor publicly tries out his Bat-voice, declaring "I'm Batman!" in a video recorded from the set of The Accountant.

October 2015: Five months before Batman v Superman arrives in theaters, the rumor mill is already churning about the Affleck/Johns Batman film, which at this point is said to draw influence from the DC Comics storylines "Death in the Family" and "Under the Hood."

Dawn of Justice ... and a New Meme

sad affleck

November 2015: Affleck admits there's "a ton of pressure" for Batman v Superman to succeed: "I mean I would be bullshiting you to say there isn’t [...] We are a very kind of instant gratification culture when it comes to analyzing the film business. And there is a lot of hyperbole involved. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of pressure on it. If it doesn’t do well, that will be extremely disappointing.”

March 2016: Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens domestically to $166 million, seemingly overcoming an avalanche of negative reviews. But poor word of mouth apparently caught up with the film, as its box-office receipts dropped 69 percent in its second weekend of release. It ends its global run with $873.6 million, short of what Warner Bros. executives had hoped.

March 2016: Affleck defends Batman v Superman against criticism with a familiar refrain, saying, “We’re not going for the film critic circle. This is an audience movie. People actually like this movie.”

March 2016: Affleck appears alongside co-star Henry Cavill in an interview that rapidly becomes the stuff of Internet legend. With some ingenious editing, and the addition of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence," "Sad Affleck" is born. Asked months later what a big-budget production like Batman v Superman taught him as a director and actor, Affleck joked, "It taught me not to do interviews with Henry Cavill where I don't say anything and they can lay Simon & Garfunkel tracks over it. That's one thing I learned."

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Affleck Resists the Bat-Signal

April 2016: Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara officially announces a standalone Batman film, with Affleck attached to direct and star. Despite nine months of rumors, the proclamation nonetheless soon proves premature.

June 2016: During a visit by journalists to the London set of Justice League, Affleck first signals that he's not about to be rushed into production of a Batman film. “I think they have a date for it,” he said. “Although, I don’t know if I would necessarily be able to make that date, because I don’t have a script that’s ready yet. So my timetable is, I’m not going to make a movie until there’s a script that I think is good because I’ve been on the end of the things when you make movies when you have a script that’s not good yet and it doesn’t pan out."

August 2016: Affleck reprises his role as Batman for a cameo in writer/director David Ayer's Suicide Squad, viewed as a chance for Warner Bros. to right the ship after Batman v Superman. However, following its record-breaking $133.7 million domestic debut, the film experiences a steep decline in its second weekend of release, much like its predecessor, attributed to negative reviews and poor word of mouth.

October 2016: While promoting his action thriller The Accountant, Affleck seemingly reveals the solo movie will be titled The Batman, only to swiftly walk that back. "There is no Batman movie happening yet," he said. "We’re still trying to figure it out, you know, get the script and budget and all that stuff. And someone said, ‘What are you calling it?’ and I had said, like, back when we were promoting another movie, I was like, ‘We don’t have a name for it, we’re just going with The Batman or Batman movie,’ and I said that, and everyone was like ‘Affleck announces the name of his Batman movie.'” If it seems like Affleck is getting annoyed by the intense scrutiny the accompanies a big-budget superhero movie, that's probably because he is.

RELATED: Should We Be Concerned About Ben Affleck's Batman Film?

December 2016: Affleck asserts, "I’m a real believer in not reverse-engineering projects to meet a window or a date," even as Warner Bros. announces a 2018 release for the Batman movie. "There’s not enough money in the world to make a mediocre version of Batman worth it," he said.

January 2017: Affleck kicks off the new year by casting more doubt about a 2018 release, saying the film is "not a set thing and there’s no script." "If it doesn’t come together in a way I think is really great I’m not going to do it," he added, perhaps telegraphing what's to come.

January 2017: Confessing he's frustrated by the pressure to deliver a Batman script, Affleck says all of the attention given to the project is "such a pain in the ass." “It’s like every time I mention Batman it gets this huge clickbait. When I was doing this movie it took me two years to get it together, but nobody ever asked me, ‘Where’s “Live by Night?’ You know? They ask me ‘Batman, Batman, Batman.’ Batman’s coming along, it’s going to be great. We’re going to make something really special. We’re going to take the time to make it right. We’re going to do it good.”

January 2017: A little more than two weeks later, Warner Bros. announces Affleck will no longer direct the Batman film. He's replaced the following month by Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes), who ultimately decides to scrap the script written by Affleck and Johns.

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Battle for the Cowl?

February 2017: The first rumor emerges that Affleck no longer wants to play Batman following Justice League.

June 2017: Reeves attempts to offer assurance that Affleck will still star in The Batman, but falls a little short of his goal: "Yeah, right now that’s exactly what’s going on, for sure."

Ben Affleck in Batman v Superman

July 2017: On the eve of Warner Bros.' big film presentation at Comic-Con International a report surfaces that the studio is developing a plan to "gracefully" shift to a new actor as Batman, sooner rather than later. That prompts Affleck to declare from the stage of Hall H, “Let me be very clear, I am the luckiest guy in the world, Batman is the coolest fucking part in any universe.”

RELATED: Justice League Offers a Solution to DCEU's Batfleck Dilemma

August 2017: Speculation reignites when Casey Affleck says on a sports radio show that he doesn't think his brother will appear in the Batman film. He has to issue a statement clarifying he was only joking.

November 2017: With the premiere of Justice League on the horizon, Affleck suddenly seems a lot less certain about his future as Batman than he did in July.

November 2017: Reeves is reportedly has Jake Gyllenhaal in mind to replace Affleck in The Batman, although Jon Hamm is also said to be lobbying for the role.

Novembers 2017:  Justice League opens to mixed reviews and a domestic box office of $93.8 million, short of expectations. The film has earned $638 million worldwide to date.

December 2017: A report indicates that Affleck is expected to appear in Flashpoint, which centers on Ezra Miller's Barry Allen, but likely won't reprise his role in Reeves' The Batman.

December 2017: Affleck plays coy about whether he might return as Bruce Wayne, saying, "I always evaluate this stuff on the merit of the material," but adds that he still has a desire to direct a Batman film. “I want to direct a Batman movie,” he continued, “and I never got a script that I was happy with, so they are starting over and writing another script. And right now, I think a lot of different possibilities I think for the way the DC Universe could go, and I will just follow my interests in pursing that. And I know that I love working with this group of people, and it was a real joy for me to make this movie.”